What are Web Services?
Web services are web-based software applications that exchange data with other web-based applications. Open, Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard applications and various other protocols are used for such exchanges. In their original capacities, web services were used in the interactions of larger, private networks. Today, however, they include interactions over the Internet as well. Integral to web services, XML is a web document description language. XML is used to describe webpage content using the application of concealed tags and identifying labels. This method of classifying web data is extremely effective, making web content quite easy to identify, analyze, and exchange. Web services are useful in linking applications operating on different network platforms, hardware, software, and databases, performing critical functions for many businesses. For instance, web services may be used to provide optimal interaction between certain business functions and important applications
Gartner Group defines Web services as: Loosely coupled software components that interact with one another dynamically via standard Internet technologies. Forrester Research defines Web services more abstractly as: Automated connections between people, systems, and applications that expose elements of business functionality as a software service and create new business value. Simply put, Web services are software components that interact with one another dynamically using standard Internet technologies – thus making it possible to build bridges between systems that would otherwise require extensive programming and conversion efforts. At the more basic level, a Web service is a collection of functions that are packaged as a single unit and exposed, or made available, over a network for use by other software programs. Web services represent the formalization and standardization of the many existing Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocols that are either proprietary, poorly supported, or onl
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